Loose ends
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: Post-ACWNR. Erwin finds something about Levi and needs to make a decision.


Author's Note: I kept this idea for a long time simply due to the circumstances in which I started planning this. Not really for the story itself, but for what was around me at the time of planning, it was simply too unique, and I did not want to lose my memories of it. As I finally started to write it down, I felt the shift of perspective from Levi to Erwin seemed interesting and might add interest to an otherwise simpler story, although it did significantly change the whole tone of the fic. With this change, it made little sense to keep Levi's perspective, but I don't know.

This is really just a whimstical fic.

Disclaimer: Don't own Shingeki no Kyojin.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

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"I know you're the ones that captured him, but can't you stop babysitting him already?"

Erwin refrained from adding Nile's words to the invitation he made for Levi to join them in his friend's persistent requests for a night of leisure. Mike would go as well, which might not seem to be the most friendly of inclusions (but the whole invitation could understadably be refused with a glare, as Levi disliked every single person involved).

"Why would I go with any of you anywhere?" it was the first reply he gave; again, it was understandable.

"I was hoping you would enjoy a bit of a break."

Levi barely glanced at him as he polished the blades.

"Why would I need a break? I haven't been doing anything."

"We don't really get that many break days," Erwin continued. "It may be good to breathe some air outside the headquarters, and without being on duty."

Eventually, when he realized Erwin wasn't really going to move without getting an answer, Levi raised his eyes.

"You people must be even more stupid when you're drunk. I don't like stupid people."

"I don't really enjoy alcohol," Erwin found himself saying. "But I appreciate the company. I would appreciate yours too."

By the look on Levi's face, his attempts seemed to be adding reasons to be distrustful rather than accepting.

"Why would you trust me to go with you?" he asked. "How do you know for sure I still don't want to kill you?"

"Do you?"

Levi frowned and lowered the blades. Erwin smiled at the wordless exchange and at the reply he took from it.

"We'll wait for you, then."

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It had nothing to do with babysitting or mistrustring Levi, but entirely the opposite. After the last expedition and the toll it took on everyone, on him more so than others, Levi had not exactly integrated in the Survey Corps. With his friends gone, he hardly engaged with other people; except Hange, Mike, and Erwin - and not necessarily in a friendly manner. His skills were unparalleled, but when it came to interacting with other comrades, and as far as Erwin was aware, they had remained a minimum. Perhaps the exception were training sessions in which he had willingly - and kindly, Erwin heard - helped some new trainees. That had caught Commander Shadis's attention too, but he was not particularly eager to engage Levi either, even if it was to help him better join the ranks, or acknowledge the smallest efforts that might have started to happen with the new trainees.

An invitation for a time out might not be the brightest, but it was the simplest way to try to make Levi understand he belonged in the Survey Corps, and he would find people to trust in it. Even if Erwin or Mike might not be his biggest or easiest comrades due to the circumstances they had met each other, Levi could still see they were open for it, and other people would certainly be as well.

As for Nile, it was another subject. It wasn't as if either of them could really start on the right foot from the get-go; they were both intrinsically mistrustful of each other from their own labels as thug and MP. So that did predict some... interesting... possibilities for failure for the night, but regardless, Levi had come, so Erwin wasn't going to be too picky on it.

Nile took them to a nearby pub he used to hang out in with Erwin, seeing some familiar faces from the military, and soon meeting a very loud and happily drunk Hange there as well, of all places, who greeted them with widened eyes to the unexpected addition to their group.

"Levi? I wouldn't think to see you here! That's so good! Here, drink! Drink! Have you ever tried moonshine?"

"I bet he was drinking it before you were even born, Hange," Nile commented not too pleasantly, but instead of getting angry, Levi scoffed.

"And I bet Four Eyes here has a bigger stomach for it than you do, shit face."

Overall, it did turn into a pleasant night, with Hange and Nile, soon joined by Mike, easing the mood into laughs and away from military life and deaths. Of course, too many drunken people in the same place is always bound to create some inevitable and short lived quarrels, like when Hange tripped over another man in a group that immediately shot out insults and threats. Hange's straightforward reply heated up the man to the point of standing up and pushing Hange, arranging for a struggle to happen and shouting louder and rougher words of provocation. The man was hardly a threat, just a drunk middle aged man with a proeminent scar on his face that showed he had probably got into one too many fights in his younger days, and whatever match he wanted to start was short lived, as both Mike and Erwin stood up from their seats and made a clear point. The older man scowled and hissed before returning to his group of drunkards, ignoring them for the rest of the night.

"Thanks, guys," Hange said, a wide happy smile returning as if nothing had ever happened. "I make friends everywhere I go!"

"Don't mind him. He's just a stupid old man."

"You think I mind him, Nile?! I didn't even hear what he said to me."

"I know him and his buddies. He's not a full bad man, but he always arranges some trouble. Typical drunkard."

"Then let's move on," Mike said. "Where were we? Midget, you were saying something about not getting drunk?"

Erwin turned to find Levi glaring, not at Mike or himself, but at the man on the other table. He seemed strangely pale under the dim light of the pub, and took a moment to realize Mike was calling him, turning as if he had forgotten they were there to begin with. He stood up suddenly, and Erwin feared he was going to turn away and leave, but instead what he said was:

"We need more drinks."

"We have moonshine here," Mike replied, his nose twisting slightly for some reason.

"That's not enough."

Mike turned to Erwin as the other man crossed the pub. Mike's cheeks were slightly flushed from alcohol, but his brows frowned in confusion with a silent question Erwin didn't really know how to answer. Mike followed Erwin's gaze as he turned it to the man with the scar on the other table again, but let it go fast as Nile and Hange restarted talking. Levi eventually returned, drinking with the taller man and leaving everyone else with their eyes wide from the ease he swallowed down one drink after the other. Erwin joined them in a couple of rounds for the sake of the company, but he did mean it when he said alcohol wasn't much his taste (which hardly seemed to be the case with Levi, though he also hardly seemed to be getting intoxicated, if at all). The interruption from earlier soon disappeared from their minds, even though Erwin caught himself noticing how Levi's eyes would sometimes avert towards the other table when its occupants would get louder in laughter.

"I hope it wasn't too dreadful," he said as they started to walk back; Hange was quite literally leaning over his shoulder, hiccuping between laughs at some personal joke none of them had really said. Mike and Nile were only half helpful, considerably drunk on their own rights. He caught himself smiling suddenly at the idea of the rebuke his friends would respectively get from Nanaba and Marie. Nile could return home, seeing as he had got the night off, but the rest of them would have to more or less sneak back into their rooms in the headquarters without much rustle - and that seemed likely to turn into a fun adventure.

"No," Levi replied sharply, bringing Erwin back from his thoughts and not really allowing for a clear interpretation if he was being honest or not. "It wasn't."

He didn't address Erwin again as they returned to the headquarters, leaving him with two otherwise heavily drunk and literally heavy Mike and Hange to try to get into bed as soundlessly as possible.

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Erwin crossed paths with a strained-looking Nile a couple of days later.

"I don't know if I need another night out, or if I just need to bury myself in my room and sleep," he sighed after Erwin asked what was wrong, his dark expression quickly dispelling any entertaining images Erwin might have had from Marie's rebuke from his mind. "We've found a body earlier this morning, and you know how that goes, the amount of stuff that needs to be done now. They put the pressure to quickly solve this before some form of panic starts to spread and reach the ears of higher ups... murder is always so much more troublesome..."

"Murder is troublesome everywhere."

"I know," Nile corrected himself, sighing again. "But you know how much of a pain it is for_ us_ in particular. Investigation and questioning and all else."

"I hope you'll find the culprit fast."

"So do I." He had taken two steps before turning back and adding, his voice low: "We actually know the victim."

"What?" Erwin repeated, turning as well with his brows frowned.

"Well, you've seen him too, at least. Remember the other night we hanged around? That guy that picked on your pal Hange. Can you believe it?"

"The older man with the scar on his face?" Erwin recalled. "If it was another bar fight gone wrong, you may have some luck solving it. Surely someone would have seen it."

"As if. Everyone ducks and looks the other way when it comes to stuff like this. And it was a clean cut to the throat. Execution-like, almost. We have not arrested every single dangerous person in Wall Sina, Erwin, and people just want to avoid trouble, so they don't want to get on a criminal's bad side. The man was rough on the edges, but he was just a family man. Had a grandson recently, I heard. His behavior was not the best, but it's always sad to see someone die just like that."

Erwin nodded, even though he couldn't stop himself from noting how the words reflected the very different lives Nile and himself had chosen. Erwin had become so uncomfortably familiar with death, with knowing good, kind and decent men and women who died just like that, quick or horrible deaths. People who might be rough on the edges, but mostly people who would never act like the older man had simply over a bump on the shoulder. And to have met an end quite like that, apparently not in a random struggle but something else, really did raise unwanted questions about that death.

Erwin hardly thought about the subject again until lunch time, when he sat on mess hall waiting for Mike, who had clearly got caught up on something and was late to join him to eat. He sat in the table row ahead of some new cadets, unwillingly catching bits of their conversation on his back until he eventually realized they were talking about Levi.

"You know I heard he actually comes from the Underground?" one of them said.

"I don't know... since when does the military hire criminals?" a young woman replied. "He was very helpful, and he didn't have to. No one else helped us, most of all your sorry dumb butt."

"Hey! I'm training! Isn't that the whole point?"

"I think it's just gossip," the young woman continued. "People are mean sometimes, and you know it. Maybe they just want to undermine his talent and made up that story because he looks so... well... intimidating..."

"I don't know, Petra. I heard some higher ups say that. You think they'd gossip?"

"Well, I don't care. He was kind and I want to thank him."

"We are in the military now, not in a grocery store. You'll make yourself look weak if you go up to a guy like that and act like a little girl thanking him."

"Don't be so dumb, Oluo. You're just afraid of him."

"Me? You're the one that is! And you're just acting up to face your fears."

"So be it."

"He was a bit rough though, Petra."

"You kept doing it wrong. It's your own fault."

Erwin caught a smile playing on his lips for the youthful folly, feeling it grow heavy shortly afterwards. Such young people, full of dreams and hopes, so easily bound to have all of it violently cut short. He wondered what Levi would think of the fearful aura he so clearly emanated to people; it seemed to be something that he carried with him from the Underground, so, did he actually appreciate that as a way to keep people at a distance? Or was it perhaps only a matter of survival, something that came with the territory of being a criminal in a rough environment?

"And he doesn't sleep."

"You are seriously stupid, Oluo. Who doesn't sleep?"

"I saw him! These past two days, I saw him outside."

"What are you talking about? Since when do you stalk people?!"

"I wasn't stalking! I was just going to the bathroom!"

"And you saw him outside?"

"Well... I saw from my bedroom window when I returned."

"At night time? Seriously? You could tell it was him from a distance, in the night? You want me to believe that?"

"I have good eyes! As he doesn't sleep, nights must get damn boring. I'm sure there's stuff to do in the town that you don't do here. Like drink, for instance."

A chill sent goosebumps down his arms. Erwin felt his body straightening, slightly stunned by his own reaction to such a simple and banal conversation. He still hanged to the word exchange between the cadets, but hardly heard anything more of interest to either justify or dispel the chilling dread that didn't leave him, as if a part of his mind had realized something that the rest of it had yet to catch up to.

He ended up eating his lunch alone with the unreasonable thoughts that seemed to grow with a certainity he couldn't control. He found Mike later on the corridors, barely giving him time to apologize for the lunch before Erwin interrupted him.

"Can I talk with you and ask you something, Mike?"

"Oh, something good's coming," he mocked, knowing what to expect from that introductory question.

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Erwin waited for them to go to his office and close the door behind them. Mike crossed over and leaned his body against the edge of the desk rather than sit down.

"I fear something might have happened."

"What?"

Erwin quickly summarized Nile's comment, but he didn't have to add any of the ill and sudden intuition-based doubts before Mike asked: "That guy the midget was stabbing with his eyes?"

A jestful way to put it - or maybe more of a morbid one, as things stood. Erwin straightened his posture as he inhaled laboriously.

"I just have this terrible feeling. I have no proof whatsoever. Rationally, I have no reasonable proof to even suspect it, it may be just a simple coincidence. But it seems you also noticed how..."

"I did," Mike confirmed. "Not only that. His whole body shifted and he smelled different. Like he was anxious. I didn't pay it that much mind, after all, he is a weird midget and the death of his friends is still fresh."

Erwin nodded and Mike continued with another relevant point:

"Still, why'd he do that? Over some stupid drunk quarell because of Hange? He doesn't like Hange that much. He doesn't like anyone that much."

"I don't know. But it is still a strange coincidence. If he did kill a civilian, however..."

"Erwin, we talked about this before," Mike recalled, his voice calm but firm. "I know what you saw in him. It's completely undisputable, he is unbelievably strong and skilled and we need people like that in the Survey Corps. I'm not going to lie to you and say that I was easily winning that fight before we captured him. But he is a thug, a criminal. Maybe that's how they solve every simple bar fight in the Underground. Maybe that's just their way of living. You saw the file the MPs had on him. You also know what they would do to him if they caught him. Living with that knowledge and with that mentality, it changes you, makes you see the world differently."

"Not more so than we change, seeing and facing what we do beyond those walls," Erwin remarked, making Mike scoff.

"He's a criminal. Criminals kill pople. Your gambit had merit, but this result is not unexpected. It's a shame someone had to die, though. He might've behaved stupidly, but he was just an old man."

"There's something about it," Erwin insisted, thinking on all he had witnessed in Levi, what he had heard the young cadets say just a few hours prior. "People don't just kill one another over nothing, and surely he wouldn't. Levi's goal before this all started was to kill me, not-"

"He tried."

"He didn't."

"Doesn't mean he wouldn't kill other people."

"Just like that?" Erwin shook his head. It didn't make sense, something was clearly missing.

"Specially someone who behaved in a familiar way, in a familiar environment," Mike guessed, shrugging, and Erwin pondered the words, taking their possible relevance; was that it? Had they known each other? The man didn't seem to react in any particular way to the people in their table, but he had focused on Erwin and Mike standing up, not Levi, who had remained sit. The man probably didn't even see him. Had the strangeness in Levi's behaviour not been because of the quarrel, but because he recognized the man? But Levi had never left the Underground before, and civilians from the surface hardly, if ever, go to the Underground. Not for legal or acceptable motives, at least. Trafficking, gambling and other worse criminal activities would otherwise tend to be the only motive for a civilian to wonder to the city below.

The whole pondering was turning into too much of a stretch. What were the odds of two people from literal words apart having met before and meeting again in a random pub? And what were the odds of Levi having actually killed the man in the first place? Was Erwin not falling exactly into the same prejudice as everyone else seemed to have about Levi, spreading the information of his past and origins to young cadets, branding him as something else different from the rest, as someone unworthy and immediately suspected without any sort of fundament?

"I'm probably getting ahead of myself and assume that-"

"For the sake of what you wanted to ask me, let's just assume he did it," Mike cut short, crossing his arms over his chest. "So. What did you want to ask me?"

It was rather simple.

"What should I do?"

Mike scoffed. "You want my opinion? You already know what I'm going to say, and I already know what you are going to do."

Erwin lowered his gaze, exhaling heavily. What should he do? Accuse an innocent man, right after trying to make him feel welcomed? That would shatter every single future possibilty for trust. Wait for Nile to manage to come to the truth, and wait to see if that truth turned out to be Levi as the killer? Approach Levi and find a confirmation to his suspicions? And if so, then what? Give up on this man that turned out to be just a lost case, throw him back into the Underground to die?

"Let's put it this way," Mike said, pulling him out of his thoughts. "If you die today, I'll know for sure it was him, I'll roughen him up and he'll go back down and end his short days in the Underground."

Erwin couldn't help but chuckle.

"Thank you for the quick solution, Mike."

"What? It's a valid one, isn't it? You are going to confront him. I know you. You won't keep your doubts quiet."

"Maybe I should," he whispered, a reminder of some of the consequences of his curiosity suddenly overlapping in his mind.

"Have more faith in your persuasion skills. You got him to join us and not kill you yet. That should count for something."

A simple but fair fact.

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Mike had been right on pretty much everything he had said; Erwin already knew most of his replies, and already knew what he was going to do regardless of his friend's advice. Already knew he would not be able to silence his doubts for long at all. Still, talking about it out loud was helpful; voicing and sharing those thoughts with someone else.

He did not ask about how to address it, though. He didn't have to wonder as he talked with Mike, but Levi was different. How was he supposed to address such an issue at all, with no proof, with no real reason for Levi to be truthful to him for whichever reason?

It was late night when he asked Levi to come to his office. The reply he got was a scowl, but shortly after, there was a knock on the door.

Erwin had not come to any conclusion up until the moment Levi stood in front of him, glaring and impatient. The gaunt pale look he used to have when they first met was slightly diminished, even though he had heavy circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. Erwin took a moment to take it in, to revise the layers he knew of the man in front of him, the good and the bad and the important.

"I saw Nile today," he started. "He shared a troublesome piece of news with me. The MPs found a body of a man this morning. Murders within Wall Sina are always troublesome."

"Murders are troublesome everywhere."

The corners of Erwin's mouth tilted upwards for a second before he added: "To the government. And much more so to the Military Police."

Levi shrugged.

"That's to be expected, it's their duty to work against shit like this. They don't like people seeing the useless shitheads they are."

"I recognized the victim from Nile's description. He was the one at the bar the other night, when the five of us were there, with a scar on his face and that picked on Hange."

Levi shrugged again.

"One of the drunkards there?"

Erwin didn't reply. Levi didn't say anything else either. He stood unflinching as Erwin stared at him, without lowering or averting his gaze, facing him without doubts or regrets, and Erwin knew.

"Under the circumstances, I'm obligated to ask why."

"You're not asking because you're obligated," Levi corrected. No denial. Not even an attempt. In the back of his mind, Erwin was surprised to find what he could only describe as relief. In Levi's own way, the fact he didn't try to lie, didn't doubt or question how Erwin simply knew, felt like respect. "You're not a MP or the Commander yet."

"Why, Levi?"

"Because I wanted to."

Not really the most innocent or understandable of answers. Erwin felt a sting of frustration cloud that initial and strange relief.

"Could it have been resolved another way?"

"No."

"Why not? Why did his actions with Hange anger you so much?"

"They didn't."

Erwin straightend his posture on his chair. So it really had not been that? What other possible reasons were there? Could his odd reasoning have actually been correct?

"Did you know that man?"

"Yes."

Erwin blinked.

"How?"

Levi crossed his arms in front of his chest, physically closing himself from Erwin unlike he had done until that moment. Erwin's brows furrowed, knowing how to read that answer as much as he had listened to the previous ones. Levi didn't avert his gaze for one second, still facing him with equal parts challenge and acceptance. He had replied with no hesitation up until this one moment, and Erwin had to carefully decide how to continue now, how to not break the clear unexpected trust he clearly did not fully antecipate; he could not tell if Levi had antecipated it, either.

"You knew him from the Underground."

"I had never been above ground, in case you forgot."

"And you knew for certain it was the same person?"

"Turns out the titans made the world a much pleasantly smaller place."

"How could you possibly know for sure?" he was forced to ask, quickly finding the most logic answer to the unreal situation. "Was it the scar on the man's face?"

"Yes."

"He didn't seem to recognize you whatsoever."

"I'm not quite like he remembered when I put that scar there."

Erwin's brows raised slightly. He felt he was getting at the end of the answers Levi would give him, but these were more than enough. And what did that make of this whole situation? If the man really had been to the Underground, it would hardly have been for innocent reasons. Levi's last answer was more illustrative than Erwin would ever require to ask, and probably would have liked to know; old scars and physical changes easily painted a clear picture, of years prior, when the man would have been younger and stronger and Levi would not, a child not strong enough to do more than place a permanent reminder on the man's face. It formed a knot in the pit of his stomach, the ease with which the different scenarios of how that might have happened appeared in his mind, all of them terrible, all of them possible. The sudden hypocracy that the man might have done it - no, he clearly had, otherwise he wouldn't have ended with his throat cut open by someone that was not weak anymore - unbeknownst to the people around him had grant him the protection of a victim, instead of the ones he victimized.

"He seemed to be somewhat problematic, but mostly regarded as a family man," he voiced, calling back Nile's, and even Mike's, comments on a drunkard's generally accepted misbehaviour over the fact he was still perceived as a normal citizen with children, a grandchild.

Levi's scoff solified the hypocracy of that statement.

"Of course. It's people like me that stand out and get labeled as criminals. Not working, family men with children who pay all their taxes to the fucking King, regardless of what they do in their free time. They're labeled as normal and people don't believe anything else."

A quick silence fell between them. It was Erwin, not Levi, who broke the connection by lowering his eyes, trying to process the information, the confirmations and realizations he suddenly had in his hands. Levi didn't give him the time he felt he needed, bringing him back to the present.

"So how does this play out?" Erwin raised his eyes back to Levi. He continued when Erwin remained silent. "Do you rat me out to your prick friend and I'm sent back to the Underground to the MPs there? Or do I get imprisoned up here?"

"Are you not considering killing me for what I know?" he caught himself asking, an echo of Mike's voice pushing out the words. To his surpirse, Levi merely shrugged.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have already. Or didn't you notice when I tried?"

Despite the subject at hand, Erwin felt his body easing. He wasn't fully sure of what he was expecting to find - other than a justification for the kill. He could see it now. Against what was morally right, if he somehow found an explanation, something that would give a meaning and turn a senseless death into something else, he knew what he would do. Because he trusted Levi, and trusted his own vision. And how was that not the morally right decision?

Still, he wanted to know how far Levi was willing to go.

"So would you simply accept being imprisoned over this?"

"I'm not saying I'd like it. I'm not saying I'll be imprisoned either."

"You'd flee and resume your criminal life in the Underground? Killing guards just doing their job in the process?"

"It's a waste to kill people."

"But not that man." Levi glared at him and didn't reply, but Erwin hadn't meant it as a question or accusation. However, Levi seemed to take it as one or the other.

"I'm used to have people decide I have to be thrown aside for just existing slightly differently from the way they do. So I expect it happen, to be threatened with imprisonment and torture and death. It doesn't mean I accept it."

"And why should you? Why wouldn't you rage against that? Why would you submit to a penance underground after your chance to be here and see what's out there?"

He struck a nerve; the core of human nature, that strived and longed for freedom. A man like Levi, to be forced to live, waste and die below ground, who now knew what he'd be giving up. How or why should he suffer that?

"All because you wanted to kill that man." he finished.

"I had to kill him. I don't leave loose ends."

"Next time, are you willing to come talk with me before you do it?"

"There won't be a next time."

Erwin leaned back on the chair. He exhaled softly.

"Thank you, Levi."

As silence followed, Levi's frown deepened.

"That's it?" he asked, waiting for Erwin to elaborate, reply in some way, but the silence with which he did was clearly not enough for Levi. "You're just going to stay quiet knowing I cut that pig's throat?"

"As far as I know, Nile is looking for a culprit. It's not part of my job to give him one."

"You're technically commiting a crime by omitting what you know."

Erwin had to smile at that, the terribly clueless but genuine statement warming him despite everything; he had much he had yet to entrust, or burden, Levi with in the future.

"The amount of things I know about this world and the people who run it would make me guilty of many more crimes, Levi, and the least serious of all is what I know you've done."

The answer was not what Levi was expecting, making him frown with doubt and confusion.

"What do you want?" he asked; he could not abandon his mistrust of human nature, or alterior motives, not after so long being forced to do it in his life, even if Erwin had already given him an answer. "What the fuck do you want from me?"

"I already told you," Erwin replied. "I want your strength and your help, Levi. I want you to help humanity feel what you feel, what you have acquired but need to yet fully achieve. Freedom. Freedom to feel the sun on your skin and see the sky above your head. Freedom to settle unfairness with justice. Freedom to understand the real nature of what surrounds us."

Levi stood silent, not sure of what to make of the answer. His arms eased their hold on each other and fell against the sides of his body.

"What about you?" Erwin asked in return.

"I just..." he paused, lowering his eyes at last, eyebrows frowned but not in his typical expression of aggressiveness, of protection. "I said I'd follow you. I need to trust you to do that. So, I answered you. There was no point in lying, even if that meant I could end up in the Underground again. You asked, I answered."

Despite everything, Erwin's smile seemed to catch Levi off guard.

"That's why I trust you too." he said. "I'm glad I'm no longer a loose end."

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the end

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Author's Note: Written in a single long go.

Thank you for reading, reviews and corrections to english are welcomed.


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